r> 



INAUgURAL EXERglgES 



OF 



President W.0.0uayle, 



OF 



BAKER UNIVERSITY 



THURvSDAY EVENING, SEPT. ii, 1890. 



BALDWIN, KANSAS. 



INAUGURAL EXER&I2ES 



OF 



Rev. W. 



UAYLE, 0. 



OF 



BA KER UNIVERSI FY 



THURSDAY EVENING, SEPT. ii, 1890. 



BAI^DWIN, KANSAS. 



PROGRAM. 



1 ^^0 



ANTHEM. 
OPENING HYMN, No. 136. 

1. Holy, 1:015% holy, Lord God Almig-hty! 

Early in the morning' our song" shall rise to thee; 
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mig-hty, 

God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity! 

2. Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore thee. 

Casting- down their g-olden crowns around the g-lassy 
sea; 
Cherubim and seraphim falling- down before thee. 
Which wert and art and evermore shall be. 

3. Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide thee, 

Thoug^h the eye of sinful man thy g-lory may not see; 
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee. 
Perfect in power, in love, and purity. 

4. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almig-hty! 

All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth, and sky, 
and sea; 
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mig-hty, 
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity. 



PRAYER, - -' Bishop W. X. NiNDE. 

SOLO, - W. C. Markham. 

ADDRESS, "A MAN NOT A MACHINE," 

Rev. James Marvin, D. D. 



12 Mr '06 



•V. 



PROGRAM. 



PIANO SOLO, Prof. F. M. Hair. 

THE INVESTITURE, - - Rkv. G. S. Dearborn, D. D. 
' 'THE DEBT OF THE INTELLECT TO JESUS, ' ' 

President W. A. Quayle. 

CLOSING HYMN, No. 937. 

1. Hasten, I^ord, the g-lorious time, 
When beneath Messiah's sway, 
livery nation, every clime, 
Shall the g-ospel call obey. 

2. Mightiest kings his power shall own; 
Heathen tribes his name adore; 
Satan and his host, o'erthrown. 

Bound in chains, shall hurt no more. 

3. Then shall wars and tumult cease; 
Then be banished grief and pain; 
Righteousness, and joy, and peace, 
Undisturbed, shall ever reign. 

4. Bless we, then, our gracious Lord; 
Bver praise his glorious name; 
All his mighty acts record. 
All his wondrous love proclaim. 



Benediction. 



Baker University, 



Founded 1 858, and Under the Care of 

THE METHODIST EPISCDPRL CHURCH, 



A MAN, N0T A MACHINE 



REV. JAMES MARVIN, D, D., LI.. D. 



FIOR what end do I exist? 

j^ To answer this question, I ask another. 
What is this individual class of beings which 
we call men? 

Bodies, subject to all the oreneral conditions of 
the higher order of animals, furnish a temporary 
abode for the mind. The body without this occu- 
pant is helpless, useless, offensive. 

Mind gives expression, action, direction to the 
body. Mind administers to the wants of the body 
in directing its natural energies for self-preservation 
and growth. Natural animal instincts and desires 
are subject to the control of mind. 

The mind's highest interest is in seeincr that the 
body is kept in the best possible condition for 
its use. 

Mind, though a unit, has many parts. 

Like those of the body, these parts or departments 
of mind have their distinct offices and their mutual 
relations. 

Intellect is defined: The thinking power in man. 
This is a principle, power, or capability back of all 



6 

definitions; the power that makes definitions. This 
power investigates, analyzes, classifies, and by 
retrospection, considers its own operations. Through 
the intellect, all reasoning processes are performed, 
all judgments rendered, and yet an ultimate analysis 
.of intellectual capabilities is impracticable, if not 
impossible. No limit within the finite has been 
discovered beyond which this thinking power may 
not explore. Present environment may restrain 
its efforts. 

Remarkable examples illustrate the energy with 
which a captive intellect breaks its chains, and 
enters some new field of thought. Saul on the way 
to Damascus; Luther doing penance at Pilate's 
staircase in Rome; Cromwell, when he broke 
from the royalists and for the people; Washing- 
ton in prayer at Valley Forge, and Lincoln on his 
way to the White House, are only a few of the 
brighter stars that have come out in ghttering hosts 
to shine away the world's darkness. These are 
stars of hope for others who feel constraint, and yet 
know not how to break away from prejudices like 
those which bound Paul or Luther, nor to enter the 
arenas of blood which confronted Cromwell and 
Lincoln. 

Every intellect that yields to the regenerating 
grace of God, enters a new field of investigation, 
boundless as the Divine mercy and love. 

Another department of mind is the sensibilities. 
These are the couriers for the intellect. Some 
communicate with the body; they are the house- 



7 

keepers and door-waiters. Others attend to the 
gathering of information for the private secretary, 
memory. Faith occupies the chair of state, with 
ample abihty to counsel in relation to all questions 
of confidence in other parties or enterprises. With- 
out faith, all commerce, all enterprise among 
men cease. 

Conscience is a most important personal attend- 
ant. The office of counselor in all questions of 
jurisdiction between right and wrong, and in point- 
ing out the boundary line between these devolves 
upon this servant. The best results to the whole 
man, are secured by the healthy and hearty co- 
operation of all these powers, under the chief exec- 
utive, the will. This faculty determines the action 
to be taken on every judgment rendered by the 
intellect. It may direct all processes of investi- 
gation; may quicken or restrain many of the sensi- 
bilities in their action; may reduce faith and even 
conscience to bondage, and promote the lower appe- 
tites and passions to dominating positions. 

Here, then, is the being we call man. 

Body, intellect, sensibilities, will, all combined to 
be trained for some useful purpose. The body is 
to be the abode of the invisible mind. For the best 
good of mind, this body should be built up, and 
cared for so as to secure the best service possible. 
The highest good of mind requires the best avail- 
able facilities for bringing into full play all the 
powers of that mind. 

Education lays hold of these powers, and with 



8 

faith in their possibiHties, undertakes to develop, 
A Man. 

To accomphsh this end, no part of the organism 
can be omitted. While nursincr the infantile body, 
the mother watches with intense solicitude for the 
awakenings of mind. The first twinkle of the eye, 
or dimpled smile, inspires delight in the mother's 
heart. The process of education has commenced. 
Happy for the child could each part of his being 
have proper attention during the years of pupilage. 
If ten years at the beginning could have competent 
care given to physical growth, healthy action of all 
bodily organs, wholesome mental discipline, the 
formation of correct habits in thinking; could they 
be influenced by truthful, cheerful and pure associ- 
ations, the next ten years would show a great 
improvement over the average product of the gram- 
mar school age. Many an intelligent farmer shows 
more wisdom in caring for his stock than in rearing 
his children. Is it possible that the money value of 
the stock stimulates his interest in that direction? 
He says to the son: You have cost me much hard 
work, and considerable money to bring you up so far, 
now I cannot afford to send you to school much longer. 
You must take care of yourself pretty soon. Farm- 
ing is hard business. You better learn book-keeping 
so that you can go into a grocery store, or a bank, 
or something, to get a living. The possibilities for 
manhood in the boy have not received a thought. 
He looks upon himself as an adventurer, hoping, 
often with little expectation, to strike a fortune 



somehow. He goes away to school. He sees no 
use, that is, money, in algebra, nor the languages, 
nor in philosophy, nor in anything but arithmetic 
and book-keeping. If advised to pursue other 
studies, he asks if they are hard. Poor child! he 
has not been taught to think; the luxury of find- 
ing out the reasons for things has never entered 
into his enjoyments. His eyes have not seen, his 
ears have not heard the world full of beauty 
and melody all around him. His labor has been 
drudgery because his mind was not more than 
half awake. 

But he comes to school, and many other boys and 
girls like him. What is the teacher to do with 
them, for them? In bodies they are almost men and 
women — perhaps they are of full stature — but chil- 
dren in mental development. Perverse mental 
habits and crude notions are to be corrected, and 
right habits of thinking formed and strengthened. 
The student does not know his own deficiencies, nor 
how to direct his energies to secure the best results. 

He may have strong predilections for some lines 
of study. A disposition for such studies may have 
come from the suggestions of parents, former 
teachers, or from associates. Aptitude for such 
studies, or preparation for pursuing them, may not 
have influenced the choice in any degree. At this 
point, wise counsel is of very great importance to 
the student. His success or failure in after life may 
depend upon a few words spoken by the teacher. 
Can that teacher keenly but kindly take the measure 



10 

of that student? Can he lay aside his own favorite 
line of studies so far as to give impartial advice? 
Will he be true to his convictions, though the school 
might lose a candidate for admission? The teacher 
who understands his business, seldom loses a case 
of this kind. A student of fair abilities discovers a 
true friend before the examination is over. 

Some schools are not furnished with teachers of 
this sort. They have no particular use for them. 
These are special schools. A kind of factory air 
prevails in all departments. All students enter 
through the same door, respond to the same ques- 
tions, are put through the same milling processes, 
and are turned out the same sort of machines, with 
slight variations in size and finish. 

7 hus we have book-keeping m.achines, plowing 
machines, housekeeping and sewing machines, and 
even machine doctors, lawyers and preachers. All 
these and numerous other school-factory machines, 
require men to set them up and to run them for any 
useful purpose. Some man must do the business 
for the book-keeper, some woman must arrange the 
house, and furnish the larder and cook books, for 
the housekeeper, and provide the ginghams and 
fashion plates for the newly graduated sewing 
machine. 

Time would fail to describe the demands for men, 
real intelligent, well developed men, to provide for, 
and to preside over the educated machines used in 
the "learned professions." An army of writers, 
publishers, traveling agents and undertakers, are 



11 

required to keep ihe machine doctors in running 
order; and there is no end to the volumes of notes, 
comments, abstracts, and homilies used up every 
Lord's day, by these whose evidence of a call to the 
ministry consists in an acquired ability to use the 
productions of nobler men. After all, the machines 
are not to be censured more than the manufacturers. 

The Divine Creator never made man to be a 
machine; never designed him to subordinate his 
, powers of body and mind to the absolute direction 
and dictation of other minds. 

The man who has free use of all his capabilities, 
operates In a larger sphere, lives in a larger world. 

To bring out in harmony all these powers of the 
man, is the business of the school. Due care for 
the body should be observed, students should have 
instruction in the use of their eyes, and ears, and 
limbs, and stomachs, as servants of their minds. 
Many a student fails from Ignorance or neglect in 
the use or abuse of his body. 

A mind trained to right methods and habits has 
redoubled ability in acquiring knowledge. The 
ability to acquire. Is the primal purpose in an ele- 
mentary course of education. This is largely true 
in higher special studies. How to acquire know- 
ledge in particular directions, becomes the object of 
the professional student. He must continue to 
study, to think, after school days are over. To 
study, to think, and to act most effectively. Is to 
best fill the measure of manhood. 

Intellectual discipline involves mutual faith on the 



12 

part of both student and teacher. Faith is one of 
the first mental powers brought into play; though 
universally employed in the current affairs of life, it 
is almost as universally neglected in education. 

Indeed some teacheis are most noted for their 
success in destroying the student's faith in himself, 
in his books, in the possibilities of certainly knowing 
anything 

On the contrary, instruction in any and every 
department of knowledge should recognize the faith 
faculty of the student. Love of truth, love of inves- 
tigation to find the truth, depends upon a healthy 
activity in faith. Faith is the mornln:^- star of 
knowledge. Doubts are dark clouds that obscure 
the light of the coming sun. Some teachers are- 
experts in raising storm clouds of this kind. They 
promote habits of mind in doubting under the false 
notion that these cloudy conditions are essential to 
the attainment of knowledge. In other words, they 
teach that one must doubt before he can know. 
Maxims of law, human and Divine, are opposed to 
this teaching. The criminal codes of men, presume 
the accused innocent until he is proved guilty; and 
under civil processes of law, the prosecutor must 
make his case good against the defendant before 
judgment is rendered. Jesus said: "If any man 
willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teachino-, 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak from 
myself." Paul said: "Now faith is the assurance 
of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen." 
So the student should be trained to seek for the 
truth in full assurance of faith. 



13 

Another neglected ability essential to manhood is 
conscience. Every department of study, the meth- 
ods of recitation, the social relations and persona 
conduct of students and teachers, afford constant 
exercise for conscience. This stands pre-eminent 
among the perceptive faculties. Ability to perceive 
promptly and clearly the boundary line between 
right and wrong, determines the individual character 
for time and eternity, A conscience void of offense, 
toward God and toward men, is of inestimable 
value. Weak, seared and defiled consciences are 
the product of a deficient or a false education. 
Power to perceive truth and to act in accord with 
our convictions of the truth, depends upon a vigor- 
ous, well-trained and enlightened conscience. 

The demand for men and women of faith in God, 
faith in men, faith in the ultimate triumph of right 
over wrong, of Christ's Kingdom over the powers 
of darkness, far exceeds the supply. Will our high- 
er schools heed the call? Will they add to their ex- 
cellent courses of study in science, literature, arts 
and the professional specialties, some recognition of 
man's moral nature? Those faculties of the soul 
which strengthen and ennoble all other mental en- 
dowments, should not be left to wither and die 
from neglect. The schools cannot turn their 
responsibilities over to the home and the church in 
this regard. 

A symmetrical man demands that all his faculties 
be developed in harmony. 

A good farmer, mechanic, physician, or lawyer. 



14 

needs moral strength ; needs an active faith and a 
conscience void of offense, as truly as a minister of 
the Gospel. Good citizens, voters, office holders, 
clerks, good women in the home, in society, every- 
where, lovers and doers of the truth, are in demand. 
We hope that in the future, as in the past. Baker 
University will respond heartily to this demand. 
She needs to make no apologies for maintaining a 
high moral and religious standard. Without lower- 
ing her requirements for thorough intellectual train- 
ing, time and attention can be given to the physical 
and the moral conditions of these young people. 
They are forming habits in their manners, in their 
modes of thinking, in their dispositions for or against 
righteous living, whch are to affect their entire 
future. Will they be truly men and women, whose 
brows shall bear the impress of Divinity? This 
newly chosen president, and these professors, have 
a sacred charge committed to them. Their success 
will be estimated, not by the number of students en- 
rolled, but by the men and women sent out compe- 
tent to lead their fellows to higher and better condi- 
tions in life. 



16 



NOTE. 

Rev. W. A. Quayle is of Celtic stock, his parents being- from 
the Isle of Man. He was born in Missouri in 1860. He was 
broug-ht up, however, on a Kansas farm in Shawnee county. We 
are glad to note, also, that he was educated in Kansas schools. 
The common school in his quiet home in Auburn g-ave hitn his 
first impulse for letters. The early part of his school life away 
from home was at Manhattan and the State University. He 
remained, however, at these places but a short time. In 1880 he 
entered Baker University, taking- the Classical Course, and 
g-raduating- with honors in 1885. During- his Senior year he was 
appointed Adjunct Professor of Ancient I^ang-uag-es, In 1887 he 
was elected to the Chair of Greek I^ang-uag-e and lyiterature. In 
December, 1889, he was advanced to the Vice Presidency. June 
4, 1890, he was made President of Baker University. 



17 



The Debt of ih Intellect to Jesus, 



REV. W. A. QUAYLE, A. M. 



LIFE is no jargon, but a noble and mellifluous 
speech. Life is not discord, but subtle and 
delicious music. Life is not chaos, but cosmos. 
Life is always harmony if comprehended; is always 
noble if actually lived. But we must distinguish 
between phases of living. Two alternatives lie 
before us— every one — to exist or to live. This is 
no factitious distinction, but is real and apparent. 
Levels so far apart as that on which the swineherd 
dwells, and that where the philosopher abides, must 
be in different realms. One exists, the other lives. 
To exist or live must be of individual choosing. 
Man is here the arbiter of his own destiny. 

God gives existence to all. He gives life only to 
those who choose it. The ox exists, the poet lives. 
The ox knows not that life is. Problemless exist- 
ence is his heritage, his environment. He is shut 
in of fate, and cannot live. He but exists and dies. 
The brute cannot touch life's borders — cannot wade 
out into the surges of life's pulseful sea. No man 
blames the brute because it is not more. Its state 
was inevitable. But man is not so shut in. He is 



18 

born for life. He has no right to let his taper pale 
to darkness. So men as certainly exist as does the 
ox. With high and far horizons, they do not choose 
to see them. Having eyes, man does not see. If 
constellations blaze above his head, what is that to 
him if he does not lift his eyes? Fhough God 
reveal himself a hundred ways, what profits that the 
man who will note the glory of the Divine presence? 
Men may be as far from each other as if they were 
in different spheres, aye, in different constellations. 
Aldebaran and Orion are not farther removed each 
from each than is man from man. One dwells on 
low, malarial levels — on spiritual lowlands. Another 
builds his home on peaks that smite the zenith. 
The lowland dweller exists; but he who seizes the 
mountain summit for a place whereon to pitch his 
tent — he lives. Man was destined for the mountain 
summit; and except he contravene his own high 
destiny, there he will dwell. He was meant for that 
majestic phase of existence which God names "life;" 
and this heritage he will possess except he be his 
own disinheritor. 

There is high meaning in Walter Savage Lan- 
dor's verse, 

"I warmed both hands before the fire of life." 

Life is to be utilized, and in this utilization lies 
its glory. 

Man is not to go sidling through the earth as if 
he were an interloper. He belongs here; and his 
highest success consists in draining the cup of his 
existence to the dregs. Tennyson voices this 



19 



thought when he makes Ulysses say, "I will drink 
life to the lees!" The question should not be, how 
little may I get from life, but how largely may 1 
become its debtor. Life's fire is of God's kindling; 
and at it we are in hiofh honor bound to warm hands 
and brain and heart. 

Each man needs to feel that every flower blooms 
for him, and every mountain towers for him, and 
every sea sweeps and thunders for him, and every 
noble soul hath wrought for him. These are all his 
by right divine. He is not simply "the heir of all 
the a^^es," but he is heir of all the Universe. Not 
to have laid all nature under tribute for your spir- 
itual uplift, is not to have, in a true or large sense, 
lived. To have failed here is to have robbed one's 
self, is to have beggared one's own existence. 

All nature's holy voices call us to enter into life. 
The speech of cliff and star and westward glory 
fading into night, is one. All call us to take our 
larger inheritance. Preacher and poet and philoso- 
pher call us into life. Each new opportunity is a 
trumpet voice calling us upward; and by such oppor- 
tunities are we begirt. 

Walt Whitman says, "Man is a summons and a 
challenge." This is true of all things that are. 
Every phase of existence is as a summons, a chal- 
lenge to thought and investigation. Every flower 
summons man to stand, and challenges him, "How 
came 1? Whence my beauty?" Every mountain 
challenges, ''Climb to my summit." Every sea, 
with its many moaning voices, with its billow^s, wine- 



20 

colored and emerald and azure, with its laughing 
silver plashing at your feet, and its sweep of waters 
with their hint of infinitudes — every such sea is a 
challenge, "Come sail on my bosom, come wrestle 
with my billows!" Let a Columbus hear the chal- 
lenge, and he will answer it; and the mighty ocean 
will have a mightier man sailing upon its 
vastness. 

God's earth is a thorn in the side of sluggish self. 
The lakelet on the summit of the hills says, 'Paint 
like this;" and the apotheosis of day on the western 
altars says, ''Create glory like unto this;" aad the 
majestic silence of the midnight says, "Create 
sublime silences like mine." Then man takes up 
the gauntlet which nature has thrown down; man 
answers the challenge; and the earth's art is the 
outcome. Meanwhile, though man knew it not, 
Nature hath been calling him upward, upward 
into life. 

Art is nothing except in so far as it helps me to 
live. History and philosophy were nothing except 
as they gave me a nobler outlook upon life. Poetry 
had held a broken harp within her hands, but that 
she gave me to feel there was beauty and nobility 
in living. Theology would be a beauteous bubble, 
vanishing the while I looked; but that it had led me 
to the life eternal. In the noblest lines that welled 
from her heart, George Eliot thus defines heaven: 

Oh, may I live in pulses stirred to generosity. 

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 

For miserable aims that end with self, 

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 



21 

And with their mild persistence lead men's search 
to vaster issues!" 

This, with every noble circumstance that falls 
within the circumference of being, I call Life; and 
to this heritage divine, God calls us. 

The difference between existence and life, then, 

is a difference in room. Life is enlargement; so 

that the problem confronting every man is, How may 

I enlarge my borders? How may I grow out of 

the little into the great? How may I attain unto 

enlargement? But ideas have expansive power. 

They make room for themselves. They are the 

caloric of the soul. Place heat in a steam chest and 

it rushes onward. It seeks enlargement. It smites 

the piston rod and drives it to and fro like a shuttle. 

The thunder of the engine as it rushes over the 

mountain summits, and the careering of the steamer 

through the rolling azure of the Atlantic, are only 

the exhibits of the efforts of heat to make room 

for itself. 

This quality of heat which we name its expansive 

power is that which lies at the very heart of the 
leviathae of modern commerce. It is the reliance 
upon this characteristic which builds the steamer, 
the locomotive, the factory. Heat expands. It is 
as restless as the stars. Never was caged eagle 
half so eager to be free from the narrow house in 
which it found itself a prisoner as is heat to be free 
from its enthralling limitations. It is an Ishmaelite 
that asks a wilderness of room. It wants freedom. 
It staggers to and fro like a wounded giant and 
seeks outlet. 



22 

Great ideas are the heat of the soul. The law 
under which they operate is that of expansion. 
They, like heat, want room. Let them once enter 
the soul and it will never be what it once was. They 
hate narrowness. Bring a man into contact with 
great ideas and he somehow seems cramped for 
room. To himself, he seems to be living in a prison, 
when he should be in a kingdom. He can scarce 
breathe till he get into larger quarters. The valley 
with its shadows is insupportable. He seems half 
suffocated and longs for the mountain height and its 
invigorating atmosphere. The all important charac- 
teristic of a great idea is its capacity for the enlarge- 
ment of the human soul. That is its mission. God 
has commissioned it. To make men weary of the 
present, to cause them to yearn with unspeakable 
desire for the future, to break bonds that fetter, to 
loose men and let them go, to breathe into the nos- 
trils the breath of a new life, to stand at a soul 
sepulchre and cry, "awake!" to kindle aspirations 
that cannot die — this is the mission of a sublime 
conception. And this is its unvarying effect. By a 
law as absolute' and exact as that which gathers the 
constellations in its hand, it operates on every life to 
which it comes. It comes and goes; but the man to 
whom it came and he from whom it departed are 
not the same. It came, saw, and, in a sense, 
conquered. It came, entered, enlarged. It entered 
to expand the man's life from the narrow dimensions 
of a hovel to the noble proportions of a palace, 
roomy and vast as a Caesar's habitation. It will not 



23 

always do Its utmost. This will depend on him to 
whom It comes. But there is this certainty. It 
will never leave a soul as narrow as before its ad- 
mission. The entertainment of an idea is proof pos- 
itive of enlargement. This is a law invariable 
as destiny. 

I had always known the sea was vast. I had no 
conception that the Atlantic was a pond where fisher 
lads ply their tiny trade, nor yet that It was a lake 
that glasses the beauty of the hills. I knew it was 
a huge thing, ''whose sleep was like a giant's 
slumber, loud and deep," and whose wakening was 
terrible as a Titan's wrath. 1 he word sea, always 
fascinated me like the touch of an invisible hand. I 
was transported by It into a realm I cannot name, 
which hath no metes or bounds. But with concep- 
tions such as these which must be allowed to possess 
a flavoring of the truth, I set sail from the harbor. 
I left liberty statue with Its uplifted torch behind me. 
I saw the spires vanish In the distance. The very 
shore grew dim and Indistinct. The swell of the 
ocean smote up against the vessel's keel. The 
pilot left us. The sails grew fewer. The throb of 
the engine told a prisoner Cyclops underneath was 
laboring for us and a blind Samson was grinding at 
our mill. The day waned. Behind, the sea gull's 
wheeling flight. Ahead, the swell of seas and bend 
of sky to touch the upward-reaching flood. 
' 'The day dies slowly in the western sky. 
The sunset splendor ades. " 

Behind us is no land. America has sunk Ike 



24 

some fabled continent out of sight. The stars are 
trimming their lamps for midnight burning. Naught 
but sea and sky. 

"The deep moans round with many voices." 
And I said as I gazed upon the waste where 
fleets had sailed and sunk, 

''There's a wideness in God's mercy 

Like the wideness of the sea." 
and the words seemed set on fire. I could read them 
blazing afar against the sky. "The wideness of the 
sea!" I knew that in a new sense now. The sea's 
barriers seemed moved backward by hands potential 
yet invisible. The greatness of the ocean was 
entering my soul. A great idea was wedging its 
way into my mind. So we sailed on from sunset, 
throucrh the darkness, and dash and moan of seas 
into the dawn. All night the engine made the ship 
a tremble. All day we headed eastward, still no 
land. Sky, sea — sea, sky. Sea gulls left astern . 
Storm petrel flinging itself into the billows. Another 
night. The stars come again. The voice of the 
night time fills the soul, and again the words, 

"There's a wideness in God's mercy, 

lyike the wideness of the sea, ' ' 
come marching through my mind like a troop of 
gigantic forms; and the breadth of the ocean seemed 
a distance I could not measure. The vastness 
appalled me — made me dumb. My soul expanded. 
The idea was transfiguring my thought. It was en- 
larging my life. The sea was lifting me into a con- 
ception of God, and the conception of God was 
glorifying the sea. So we sailed on. Three days 



25 

g-one, no shore. Four days ended and no low lying 
coast. A horizon of seas no more. Five days, six 
days; the vastness grew. Our sailing seemed a 
shoreless venture. Seven days, eight days. 
Sunset, star rise, sea's surge and no shore. 
The engine has not ceased its pantingfor a moment. 
The ship has not delayed, but rather has been "re- 
joicing like a strong man to run a race," and yet no 
shore; and the words, "Like the wideness of the 
sea," overmaster me. I find myself saying, "wide- 
ness, wideness of the sea." I am clambering into 
realms of soul sunrise. My thought is girding itself 
for hiorh endeavor. I lino-er on the word "wideness" 
as a mother lingers on the name of her dear, departed 
child. I linger upon it, and can but worship him 
whose love is wide as the vast ocean, or the sweep 
of an infinite sea. I can never foro^et the exhilara- 
tion of thouo^ht. I can never be as small as I once 
was. It was worth our while to dwell on this thought 
because such is the effect of every noble idea that 
enters the soul. Its mission is to amplify. The 
word which embraces it all, is "expansion." 

Keats, in his own inimitable way, has told his ex- 
perience in coming face to face with a great thought. 
"Then felt I as some watcher of the skies, 

When a new planet swims into his ken; 
Or like stout Cortez w^hen with eagle eyes 

He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 
I^ooked at each other with a wild surmise — 

Silent, upon a peak in Darien. * ' 
The elevation of soul which must characterize the 
man who has beheld some great new truth, is incon- 



2,6 

ceivable. I have attempted to imagine what emotions 
Newton experienced when he grasped that colossal 
conception of gravitation. When he beheld the 
physical universe held as in some giant's hold by this 
power which seemed veritable Omnipotency. When 
he beheld the solar system, aye, and every system, 
every wandering star, every swift- winged comet, 
every meteoric cloud, all far-off, dim nebulae, these 
all holden by a power invisible, yet potential as Deity. 
— I have attempted to realize his emotions, but have 
always failed. It lies beyond our power. We may 
form some imperfect notion, but an adequate concep- 
tion, never. Yet this is certain. That experience 
must have been rapture; and is it conceivable that 
Newton, after such vision, could be as he once was? 
Could his existence be as commonplace, and his life 
as narrow as before he had entertained this unique 
and majestic idea? I hold it to be self-evident that 
ever thereafter he was in a high sense a new intel- 
lectual creature. To others he seemed his old self; 
but he was conscious that he had been translated 
into a new world. Ideas thrust men out into broad 
places and make life a verity. These constitute our 
supreme intellectual need. 

Notions are many; ideas are few. The name of 
our fancies is legion; while the ideas which have 
seated themselves in the mind may too often be 
numbered on the digits of a single palm. We are 
as children who play with pebbles. Tiny matters 
absorb our attention. Subordinate affairs crowd to 
the front. Inferiors usurp the place of the great su- 



27 

perlors, and take the chief seats In our intellectual 
synagogues. This view of the case, while not flat- 
tering, is just. We need to be up-borne Elevation 
is a prime necessity; and it is pertinent to inquire 
with utmost solicitude, whence may be derived these 
"thoughts that wander through eternity," that trans- 
form and glorify the soul, that enlarge the man till 
he bear such a faint semblance to his former self as 
the man full grown bears to the babe in arms? Let 
us address ourselves to answering this question. 

God's provision for every need is ample. 
Wherever there is a God-implanted hunger there is 
also a satisfying portion. Man may be niggardly in 
his giving, but God never is. He gives with a gen- 
erosity which seems the prodigality of some spend- 
thrift Deity. The limitation of His benefaction is as 
the gift of His spirit; and he giveth His spirit not by 
measure. My life needs thought. Except that 
hunger be satisfied, the life must perish; and death 
shall snuff out the light of vitality and leave but 
darkness. But God's creations are not in vain. He 
doth not make to mar. He hath sown thought 
through his creation with an unsparing hand. 
Easier shall the astronomer count the figures that 
march in the marshalled host of midnight than man 
shall number God's thoughts. The thoughts of an 
infinite God are infinite in number. "I think God's 
thoughts," shouted the enraptured astronomer. 
This is what every thinker does. Who thinks greatly 
must think God's thoughts; for all such are his. Of 
these we may say, *'God is the maker of them all." 



28 

Even as "every good and every perfect gift" comes 
from Him, so every exalted idea that charms the soul 
into music, comes from Him. He is the source 
where infinite fullness dwells. 

While nature is God's thought, the Bible is the 
interpreter of nature, and reaches out of the physical 
into the spiritual, that is, out of Nature into Grace. 
Christ is the one word that embraces all that is; for 
"of Him and through Him and to Him" are all 
things. Christ is the explanation of physical 
phenomena, as He is the explanation of Spiritual 
forces. The world has long since accorded to Jesus 
a place among and above great moral teachers. 
Even Rationalism does not deny this, but rather as- 
serts it with marked emphasis. True it is that Jesus 
is the iconoclast in the realm of morals. He turned 
things upside down. He smote wrong systems to 
the dust. With his scourge of cords He drov e even li- 
censed sin from His presence He has put such a moral 
force into operation, that, viewed only from a human 
standpoint. He seems destined to subdue men and 
dominate the earth. But while this is true, while 
Jesus is the moral power to which the race must some 
time pay its homage, while spiritual renovation is His 
chiefest mission, is it not true that He is the world's 
greatest intellectual benefactor? Has He had an 
equal? Is He not the author of ideas such as have 
no peer in all the realm of thought? Is He not in 
the forefront of all that goodly company of noble 
spirits who have given us such mental incentives as 
the soul needs to lift to its true destiny? I would 



29 ' 

magnify Christ as "God manifest in the flesh" for 
the redemption of man and the complete regeneration 
of his nature, but 1 would also magnify Him as being 
in Himself and in His ideas the greatest stimulator to 
thought the world has been privileged to know. 
The ideas he gave, look at them! How great they 
are! God, moral responsibility, man's ability to know 
divinity, immortality, man's divine origin, providence, 
moral gravitation, heart regeneration, God the 
creator and sustainer of all existence and life, human 
brotherhood, and last. Himself incarnate God — these, 
and more, which, if they should be named, a man 
would seem to be calling the roll of the greatest ideas 
the centuries have known. Contact with such 
thought is soul elevation. It is an education in 
itself. It constituted the training of the Apostolic 
college; and no man can enter into fellowship with 
the ideas of Christ without becoming a man of intel- 
lectual vigor. Daniel Webster declared that the 
greatest thought he had ever entertained was that 
of personal responsibility to God. Bring a man face 
to face warh that thought for the first time, and it 
would blind him with the blaze of its glory. The 
Scotch are the most devout of peoples. They are 
also the keenest thinkers. The Puritans received 
both their republicanismand their loftiness of thought 
and morals from the Bible. The early Methodist 
preachers were men whose intellectual prowess was 
approved. They were second to none of their time. 
They challenged the attention of their contemporaries 
and commanded the respect of thinkers. That men- 



30 

tal vigor was acquired by standing under the glory 
of the God thoughts as expressed by Jesus. 

He who has wrestled with the ideas that Jesus 
gave Is as one who hath fought with gods. His 
thews become as those of the Anaklm. Christ Is an 
Intellectual force. Christianity Is an Intellectual re- 
generation. Christian education is Christ in educa- 
tion. And certainly If modern civilization is the out- 
growth of Christian thought, if the manhood of the 
nineteenth century is the product of Christian ethics; 
if the ideas given by God to man have been so 
stimulative as to rouse the intellect to put on Its 
strength, Is it not self-evident that the Christ element 
is an all-Important factor in education? Culture 
which shall omit Jesus, Is a misnomer. The need 
of our age, and the need of every age until time 
become a memory. Is an education of which Christ 
shall be at once the center and circumference. Here, 
as always. He should be the all in all, and this nor 
simply from a theological standpoint but also from 
the point of intellectuality. An incoming Christ 
should mean outgoing narrowness. A Christian 
inculcation Is preparing the way for great mental 
achieveme ts. - 

Institutions devoted to Christian education are not 
founded in narrowness. Their foundation is exceed- 
ing broad. They need no apology, but are their 
own effectual vindication of their existence. I do 
not believe that there has ever been a greater need 
of such institutions than at this hour. When Chris- 
tianity Is being assailed on every side, when the 



31 

Statement Is rife that Christianity Is narrowness and 
ag-nostlcism Is breadth; when the youth are beset by 
infidel sneers, arguments, doormatlc assertions and 
treatises falsely named scientific — when such is the 
state of affairs, there seems to be large room for ed- 
ucation which shall lay emphasis on the truths which 
lie at the heart of Christian orthodoxy. 

The common schools are a bulwark of republi- 
canism. They have many points of excellency, and 
must remain as an essential part of a democratic 
government. But the common schools are not 
Christian schools, except In the regard that they 
only occur In a Christian civilization. They may be 
Christian, but they may be also anti- Christian. The 
teacher may read from the Bible or repeat precepts 
from the Vedas. The schools may be essentially 
Christian or essentially heathen. The Bible Is not 
In the common schools. There Is no required Incul- 
cation of Bible morality as such. Under these cir- 
cumstances, what can prove a more effectual ally of 
the doctrines of Jesus than schools of higher educa- 
tion in which the Bible is ''the altar which sanctifieth 
the gift;" and in which Christian history and thought 
are taught and Christian life and experience are 
pointed out as necessities of the truest manhood and 
womanhood. 

I would not have the classics nor mathematics 
taught less. While protesting against every scien- 
tific hypothesis being classed as science, I would 
magnify the office of true science. I would not have 
Christian educational institutions teach the great 



32 

intellectual essentials less; but I would have them 
teach the Bible more. I would magnify the work of 
all these intellectual agencies; but I would put the 
Bible beside them. I would give it a prominent place 
in the curriculum. Its sublime concepts, its exalted 
ethics, its profound psychology and its vital godliness 
should be taught and become a part and a prominent 
part of a student's intellectual accoutrement. It Is true 
now as in the long ago, ''My people perish for want of 
knowledge." It would seem to me eminently fitting 
for Baker University to arrange a course of Bible 
study in its curriculum, so that each student in the 
event of his graduation should have a clear concep- 
tion of the grounds of the Christian faith, and should 
be ''thoroughly furnished" in a knowledge of the 
doctrines which Jesus gave and the apostles 
amplified. 

Christian education should be a word of large and 
noble meaning. It should embrace all the know- 
ledge imparted in any institution, plus a thorough 
Bible inculcation. I believe this is the need and the 
demand of the church. I believe that Baker Uni- 
versity should be an intellectual force and a spiritual 
awakener. The youth ought to go from this school 
with the enlarged views of God which come from the 
acquaintance with His word and a study of its doc- 
trines, and best of all, and therefore most to be de- 
sired, with a vital Christian experience. The latter 
God alone can give; but for the former we are ac- 
countable to Him whose injunction Is "learn of me." 
No reason can be assigned why the broadest schol- 



33 

arship should not be connected with the most pro- 
found piety. This is the end of Christian education; 
and it is an end exalted above all we can adequately 
conceive. 

The conduct of an institution with such an aim is 
worthy task for a learning, experience and wisdom 
which I cannot hope to possess. My predecessor 
brought to this work qualities singularly adapted to 
its needs; and his administration was a pronounced 
success. I take his vacated place with much mis- 
giving and a keen appreciation of the responsibility 
of the position to which the church has called me. I 
ask the co-operation of faculty and students and the 
prayers and sympathy of all friends of the college. 
By God's help I shall do the best that in me lies. 
I believe in Baker University and its mission. I 
rejoice in its history, hope for its future and maintain 
that it shall continue to do the work of a high grade 
educational institution as long as it continues to exist. 

Shall we not all hope and pray that a college 
founded by godly men for the promotion of Christian 
education, maintained by great sacrifices through 
days of gloom when only a mighty faith could sight 
the stars, prospering in the.-e latter years so as to 
more than justify the hopes entertained by its 
founders, — shall we not, I say, hope and pray that 
a school with such an aim and history may continue 
to lead men and women into a higher life, in which 
scholarship shall be sanctified and glorified by a 
vital Christian experience? 



